


Ragged

by JhanaMay



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Porn with some plot, Set between Daredevil season 2 eps 9 and 11, canon typical trauma/violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 04:27:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16757671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JhanaMay/pseuds/JhanaMay
Summary: After the Punisher escapes from prison, he and the Devil of Hell's Kitchen once again find themselves at odds. When the Blacksmith's men attack, the outcome is different than either of them expected.





	1. Frank

**Author's Note:**

> Although this is two chapters, it is actually the same scene written from two different POVs. If you have a preference, you don't need to read both chapters to understand. I do think it adds more depth to the scene to read both, though. 
> 
> Frank's POV is Chapter One and Matt's is Chapter Two. 
> 
> As always, thanks to destimushi for catching all my weird writing quirks.

Frank wipes the trickle of blood from pale skin and throws the rag next to the needle and thread beside Matt—the name he only allows himself to use inside his head—on the coffee table. His stitches are ragged, but it’s better than Matt’s guts falling out through the six-inch gash on his side. He doesn’t need super bat ears to hear the sharp intake of breath when he presses a clean gauze over the wound.

“Good as new,” he says, passing his eyes over the bandages covering the bullet wound in Matt’s shoulder. Through and through with no blood seeping through the white gauze. Good.

“How did you know to bring me here?” Matt says, wincing as he shifts off the table onto the couch. A clean—or at least not bloody and full of holes—shirt is thrown over the couch beside him, next to the red leather Frank had peeled off him and Frank’s own jacket, but he makes no move to pull it on.

Frank rises from where he was crouched next to the coffee table and slumps into the chair opposite him, feeling every minute of his nearly forty years. “Ain’t much about you I don’t know, Red. You’re not that hard to figure out.”

With Matt collapsed in a heap on the ground in front of him and the Blacksmith’s men bearing down on the warehouse where they were holed up, Matt’s converted loft apartment was the only place Frank could think to bring him before he bled out. He’s gotten used to Matt crashing his nightly hunt for the assholes who killed his family, but no one but him is putting Matt Murdock in the ground.

His eyes skate over the motley collection of scars and bruises covering Matt’s toned chest. Over the last two months, they’ve beaten the shit out of each other more than once, but most of his scars are long healed. Frank isn’t the first bad guy the devil of Hell’s Kitchen has tangled with.

Matt’s light brown eyes narrow. The first time Frank read that Matt Murdock is blind, he second-guessed his assumption that the lawyer moonlights as a masked vigilante. He’d thought there was no way a man who fights like a demon and is so at home on the rooftops could be blind.

Looking at Matt now, it’s clear that Matt Murdock and the devil are one and the same. Though he’s angled toward where Frank is sitting, his unfocused gaze drifts just to the left of Frank’s head, making him appear spacey and vulnerable. Two things Frank knows he definitely isn’t.

“Okay, so I guess then the question is why did you bring me here? You could have left me there. Maybe even got lucky and waited until they finished me off.”

Frank shrugs. He’s pretty sure Matt’s freaky superpowers aren’t good enough to tell where he’s looking, but he pulls his attention away from Matt’s chest, anyway. “I got a soft spot for you. Who’s gonna give me a challenge if I let someone else whack you?”

Matt makes a sound that is half cough and half scoff and doubles over in pain. Frank tenses, ready to launch himself out of the chair, but curls his fingers around the armrests to keep himself seated instead. “Maybe you actually want me to stop you,” Matt says when the pain clouding his eyes clears again. “You know if I wasn’t around, no one else would be able to.”

It’s Frank’s turn to scoff. No one, not even the devil vigilante, is stopping him from doing what he came back to New York to do. No, his interest in Matt is something else, something more personal, but damned if he can figure out what. He’s never had a problem putting down someone who stood in his way before, but even when he has Matt in his crosshairs, he can’t bring himself to take the kill shot.

“If you stopped swinging those little sticks around and picked up a gun, you wouldn’t look like a patchwork quilt.” Frank draws his eyes down again, tracing the puckered wounds to where one bisects the trail of dark hair leading into Matt’s leather pants. “If you really wanted to save people, that’s the way to do it.”

Matt shoves himself up from the couch, grunting with pain, and circles to the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room. “I’m not a killer,” he says, his voice hard again, pissed off. He picks up a glass and fills it with water from the sink before popping two pills from the bottle next to it. “I have no right to take a life and neither do you.”

Frank laughs out loud this time. “Uncle Sam gave me the right. They put a gun in my hand and told me to kill the people who needed killed. Bad people do bad things until they’re stopped. You just delay it.”

Matt looks Frank’s way again, anger creasing his forehead, and if Frank didn’t know better, he’d think Matt was looking right at him. “Justice is not the same as revenge. I protect people, not sentence them.”

“Punishment, Red. Not revenge.” Frank pushes himself up from the chair and follows Matt across the room, stopping on the opposite side of the bar. He rests his hands against the cool surface. “Like that pretty blond who works for you? Your hippy friend? Are you protecting them?”

The glass thuds when he sits it back on the counter. Matt’s jaw clenches and he bites out, “Yes. Them and anyone else who needs to be protected.”

“She’s more than an employee, isn’t she? Karen? She’s your girl.”

Matt’s jaw works and he turns away before answering, his shoulders stiff with tension. “We’re not—she’s—it’s complicated.”

Frank’s eyes skate down from broad shoulders to a slender waist, back mottled with the same contusions and scars as his chest. “Love ain’t complicated. It’s just something you do. You choose something other than her, something that sends you home looking like that—” He inclines his chin toward Matt’s body even though Matt can’t see him do it.  “—and you don’t know why she’s not committing? Come on, Red. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“You know nothing about me.”

The distance around the counter only takes a few seconds, and Frank stops a foot shy of getting in Matt’s face. “I know you. We’re more alike than you think.”

Matt’s chest heaves with a deep breath and he holds it a moment before letting it out in a rush. “We’re nothing alike.”

“I went to war with a gun in my hand. Did my job, protected my brothers, my country. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t protect the people I needed to the most.” The stench of blood in his nostrils, broken, bleeding bodies of his wife and children in his arms, and terror and pain as bullets tore up his body. He shoves the memories away. “You go to war with your words. Fancy lawyer education. You think that protects people, the ones you care about. But you know it‘s bullshit same as me. You put on that suit and a mask and fight another way, but you’re still losing the war. Only one way to stop people bent on doing bad and that’s putting them in the ground.”

For a moment, Matt says nothing, just draws in deep breaths, nostrils flaring. With his hair crazy from the mask and a bruise darkening the skin partially hidden by stubble, he looks so damn young. Scared. Tired. Vulnerable in a way that has nothing to do with how hard he throws a punch. “You’re wrong,” he breathes, voice twisted with pain and so soft Frank almost misses it.

Frank takes a step closer, just inches separating them. “Was I wrong to kill the men the military painted a target on? Would you see every soldier who killed in service to this fucked up country of ours tried for murder?”

“That’s different.”

“Fuck that. It’s no different. A body in the ground is still a body. A life snuffed out before it can do the same thing to anyone else.”

Matt’s chest heaves again, his bare abs clenching as he hauls in another shaky breath. “Someone has to be responsible, to give the order—”

Frank slaps his hand on the refrigerator next to Matt’s head, and he flinches away, one hand coming up to block the blow that never connects. “Is that what it takes, Red? Someone else taking responsibility? As long as it ain’t you, as long as someone else is giving the orders, you got no problem jumping in line?”

Matt licks his lips, the tip of his pale pink tongue tracing a line of moisture across his cracked skin, and Frank tracks the motion with his eyes. “I have no right to make those decisions. It’s not up to me to decide whose life is worth sparing and whose should be taken.”

But Frank isn’t thinking about life and death anymore. Not shit bag criminals, sand in his boots, or a rifle in his hand. No, he’s thinking about much stupider decisions. Choices and responsibility and giving orders that take both out of Matt’s hands. In a moment of clarity, he realizes this is what they’ve been racing toward all these months. The reason he couldn’t take the shot. Not death, but the purest form of living.

Despite his finely honed reflexes, Matt flinches when Frank cups both sides of his face and tugs him forward to slam their mouths together. With no finesse, Frank goes straight for broke, prying Matt’s lips apart with his tongue and swallowing his broken sound. Whether it was a protest or acquiescence, it doesn’t matter, because Matt only stays still for another moment before his hands come up to circle Frank’s neck.

Matt kisses like he fights, power and passion and grace. Frank catches his lower lip between his teeth, and Matt makes a low sound in his throat when Frank bites down hard enough to taste blood. It’s been years, decades, since he’s done this. Let himself go like this. Frank loved his wife, loved being with her and the life they made together, but he can’t deny that he missed this. Hard muscles under his hands, the scrape of stubble against his lips, strength and brawn and not being afraid of hurting the person on the receiving end of his lust.

“Fuck, Red,” Frank groans against Matt’s jaw when his hands skate up inside Frank’s t-shirt. He takes a step forward, pinning Matt to the counter so he can grind their hips together, and Matt’s calloused palms smooth over his back, down until they skim the waistband of his jeans.

Hot breath against his neck as Matt kisses up from the hollow of his throat to his ear, harsh panting as he bites down on the lobe and Franks groans into the crook of his neck. His cock pulses, grinds against the bulge confined in Matt’s pants, and Frank bites down on the tendon under his lips. Matt’s hips jerk, thrusting their dicks harder together.

“Frank, Frank, Frank,” Matt chants, hips rolling as he chases the friction. His voice strains, cracks, and whines as the cadence of Frank’s name matches the rhythm of their thrusts.

“I got you.” Frank’s hands trail down his sides, fingertips skimming the edges of the bandage then around to grab two handfuls of Matt’s ass. He bends his knees, lifting as he stands, and Matt only tenses for a moment before he wraps his legs around Frank’s waist. His lips trail back over Frank’s jaw to find his mouth again and this time it’s Matt’s tongue forcing its way into Frank’s mouth. Frank sucks on it and Matt moans.

Matt isn’t a small guy, but his muscle is compact, easy to carry. Especially when he’s supporting himself with his arms around Frank’s neck and legs clamped around his hips. The dozen steps back to the couch barely have Frank’s muscles straining, and he stoops to lay Matt onto his back more gently than the heat erupting between them calls for. Less than two hours ago, Matt had been shot and sliced open. Passion is one thing, but tearing open his stitches won’t do either of them any good.

Frank strips his t-shirt over his head before Matt tangles his arms around him, pulling Frank over him. Bare skin against skin, he lets Matt kiss him again, lets Matt suck on his tongue and thrust up against the knee he planted between Matt’s legs to keep from crushing him. Fuck, he hasn’t been this hard in years, since before he woke up on the gurney in that shitty hospital, body ravaged, memory shoddy, and completely alone in the world.

Leveraging himself up a little farther, he keeps his mouth fused to Matt’s while he works the closure on Matt’s pants. Once it’s open, he pulls back to drag them, and the boxer briefs under them, down Matt’s toned thighs and off his legs. He sits back on his haunches next to the couch and traces his gaze over Matt’s bare body, from his broad shoulders to the vee of muscle over his pelvis to the dark thatch of hair around his rigid cock.

“Fuck. I had no idea you were hiding all this under that stupid getup.” Matt’s eyes darken, temper sparking in the depths, and Frank grins. “Woulda made our fights a lot more interesting if I’d been thinking about what your cock looks like the whole time.”

“Shut u—”

Matt cuts off with a groan when Frank closes his fist around the length in question and pumps it a few times, thumb trailing over the head. Moisture gathers around the slit, slicking the little circles Frank makes along the underside. Matt’s hips buck, forcing his cock through Frank’s grasp faster, harder, and his breath catches with little starts and jumps. When Franks lets go to trail his hand down past his balls, gently tugging on the wrinkled skin of his sac, and trace his fingers around Matt’s hole, Matt whines, his eyes clenching shut as he throws his head back.

Still rubbing circles against Matt’s rim, Frank pops the button on his jeans and pushes them down far enough to free his own aching cock. He takes it in hand, stroking, fist tight just the way he likes it. A sound from Matt pulls his gaze up, and he finds Matt’s unfocused gaze turned toward him.

“Are you jacking yourself?” Matt’s voice is raw, a low, sexy rasp.

“Yeah.”

Matt licks his lips. “Can I—”

“You wanna blow me?” Doubt colors the words.

The nod is more confident than Frank was expecting, but he doesn’t need more convincing to shuffle up and lean over to bring his dick even with Matt’s kiss-swollen lips. “Have you ever—”

“Shut up, Frank,” Matt snaps, tongue darting out to flatten over the head. Frank shudders and Matt smirks. “You’re not the first man I’ve been with.”

Frank’s eyebrows go up. “Your partner? The other lawyer?”

Matt’s face screws up. “Foggy? No, definitely not. In college. It’s been a few years.”

“For me too.”

Matt must be tired of talking. Instead of responding, he slides his hands around to grab Frank’s ass and pulls him forward so he can swallow Frank’s dick in one smooth motion. The head hits the back of Matt’s throat, hot, wet pressure bearing down on him, and Matt swallows a few times before tugging him forward even farther. Matt gags this time, and Frank must really be a sick fuck because the spasms of Matt’s throat as he struggles for control set off sparks behind Frank’s eyelids. It takes a moment for him to remember that he should pull out, but Matt’s hands on his ass won’t let him.

Instead, he tugs Frank’s hips forward, nudging his dick in and out of Matt’s throat despite the way he gags on it. Tears gather at the corner of his eyes from the effort and spill over, but Matt still doesn’t let him pull back. Matt with his lips stretched around Frank’s dick, eyes clamped shut and wet streaks trailing down his temples to his hairline, is the single hottest thing Frank has ever seen, and Frank has to look away before he shoots right then. Much as he’d love to blow down Matt’s throat, he wants in that tight ass even more.

This time, when Frank pulls away, Matt lets him go. He looks debauched, eyes watering and lips shiny with saliva and pre-come. That’s pretty much all the foreplay Frank can handle.

He moves back down, shoving his pants down his thighs so he can kneel between Matt’s spread legs, one foot braced on the floor. He spits into his hand and rubs the moisture over Matt’s rim, dipping inside a little, before smoothing it over his cock. Not ideal, but it will have to do. He lines his dick up with the entrance to Matt’s body.

Matt kicks him in the ass with one heal. “What the hell are you doing?” he demands, struggling to push himself up on his uninjured shoulder.

Frank freezes. Did he misread something? Matt seemed to be as hot for it as he was. “What?”

With a glare, Matt shoves his hand down between the back of the couch and the cushions and comes up with a small bottle and a foil packet.

Frank’s eyebrows shoot up again when he thrusts them into Frank’s hand. “You keep lube and condoms in your couch? You really are a fucking boy scout.”

“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to fuck me?” Matt says, still glowering.

That doesn’t even deserve an answer. Frank tears open the condom, rolling it down over his shaft. Maria had been on the pill since Lisa was born and he hadn’t fucked around much before her, so it’s no wonder he hadn’t thought about needing one. He drips the lube, warm from being nestled in the couch, over his cock and smooths it around before drizzling more over Matt’s hole.

Matt moans, head tipping back and tendons in his neck taut, when Frank pushes the slick inside with first one finger then two, pumping gently and then harder, faster when Matt bears down. It’s probably not enough, but Frank can’t wait any longer. He needs that tight heat wrapped around his dick now.

This time when Frank lines up, Matt gives him a hazy grin. His mouth goes slack when Frank pushes in, his body gradually opening to accommodate Frank inside him. “Holy fuck, Red. Not gonna last. You feel so fucking good on my dick,” Frank pants, the effort of holding still long enough for Matt to get used to him making his muscles twitch.

“Me either,” Matt counters, rocking his hips. “Move, Frank.”

Frank pulls out nearly the whole way and slides back in to the hilt in one smooth motion. Matt keens, abdominal muscles bunching as he shifts his hips as if he’s trying to urge Frank on. Picking up on the motion, Frank sets a smooth rhythm of fast, shallow thrusts punctuated with slower, deeper movements. On each long thrust, Matt’s entire body tenses and his eyes roll back in his head. Frank smirks.

It only takes a few minutes for Matt’s body to begin to quiver, muscles straining as he rolls up to meet every thrust, and Frank can tell he’s balancing on the razor’s edge. Frank isn’t far behind, heat pooling in his gut and his balls drawing up tighter, but he wants—needs—Matt to go first. Wants to watch him come undone.

Matt reaches for his dick with his uninjured arm, but Frank grabs him by the wrist before he can connect. “Frank, please, I can’t come like this. I need—”

Frank presses their palms together, fingers clasped in a way that should be too intimate even as he’s buried inside Matt’s body, but it feels right. Like just the thing to do. He pulls Matt’s hand above his head, pinning it there against the arm of the couch as he picks up the pace. Every thrust punches a grunt out of Matt, pushing him up the couch against the arm. Frank leans in, mouth ravaging Matt’s before wrapping his free hand around Matt’s cock and pumping in time with his thrusts. “I got you. You’ll get what you need. Let go, Matt.”

Matt’s unseeing eyes go wide and his breath catches on Frank’s name a moment before his entire body goes taut. He shudders, cock pulsing, covering Frank’s hand and his chest with his release. The spasms seem to go on forever, milking Frank’s cock and drawing him closer to the edge with each wave.  A bolt of pleasure races up his spine and Frank thrusts in as far as he can, holding himself there, as his orgasm washes over him. He circles his hips, grinding deeper as he empties himself into Matt’s body.

It takes Frank a moment to catch his breath, forehead dropping against Matt’s. Matt shudders with aftershocks, his ass clenching weakly on Frank’s dick, making it feel like his orgasm is still going on more than a minute later. It seems wrong to pull out of the welcoming heat of his body, and Matt winces in pain when Frank sits back on his haunches, one hand holding the condom to his already softening dick. He slips it off and ties the end before dropping it on the floor next to the couch.

Matt looks dazed, sated, his muscles as lax as Frank has ever seen them. Frank grabs the rag from the table and swipes it across Matt’s chest, blood tinging the fluid red. He stands, tugging his jeans back up and fastening them with one hand, then walks over to throw both the rag and the condom into the kitchen garbage. On the way back, he snags his shirt off the floor and tugs it on.

By the time he’s back in front of Matt, he’s fully dressed and Matt is sitting upright on the couch, spine ramrod straight and muscles tense again. If Matt wasn’t still completely naked, he could almost pretend it hadn’t happened.

Except for the lazy glow of pleasure still pooling in his belly and the greedy way his eyes trace over Matt’s body and the phantom memory of Matt’s warmth wrapped around his cock. There’s no pretending that didn’t happen.

The first rays of morning sun are just creeping across the sky outside the windows and Frank reaches for his jacket. He’s almost glad Matt can’t see his guilt, can’t see the way he curls his hands into fists to keep from reaching for Matt again. “It’s almost dawn,” he says, holding himself awkwardly beside the coffee table, too close to Matt for comfort, but farther away than he’d like.

Matt’s jaw works, then he forces a tight smile. “You should go.” His tone is flat, no trace of the man who had been chanting Frank’s name just moments ago.

Frank picks up the bag with his weapons in it and slings it over his shoulder. Ice replaces the remainders of pleasure in his gut, making it hard for him to even take a step, but he forces himself over to the open window that leads to the fire escape. “See you around, Red,” he says, swinging his legs over the sill. He reaches for the railing above him, then stops when Matt calls his name. He ducks so he can see Matt still sitting on the couch.

“Just so you know,” Matt says, tilting his head, expression as cold and blank as his voice. “It doesn’t help when someone else takes responsibility. A mistake is still a mistake no matter who gave the orders.”

Frank swallows the bile in his throat and climbs the fire escape to the roof without looking back.


	2. Matt

The city pulses with life a half dozen floors below them, but they’re safe...for now. The Blacksmith’s men did their damage, ran them to ground, but Frank got them out. Brought them here, to Matt’s home.

Frank drops something on the coffee table next to Matt—probably the needle and thread he used to sew up the gash in Matt’s side—and presses a soft pad against the wound. Matt sucks in a sharp breath as fire licks up his side, but the pain is nothing new. An old friend, like the scar that will join the bullet wound in his shoulder and the others littering his body. He can’t see what they look like, but he traces the puckered skin when he showers, a prayer of both contrition and thanksgiving.  

“Good as new,” Frank says. Matt waits for more, but Frank is silent, only the whispered rasp of his breathing and the steady cadence of his heartbeat to show he’s there at all.

“How did you know to bring me here?” Matt winces as he shifts off the table onto the couch. The leather of his suit creaks from somewhere beside him as he settles, the stench of blood and antiseptic overpowering the rose candle Karen had left on the kitchen counter.

When Matt collapsed into a heap on the ground in front of Frank, strength draining away with his blood onto the concrete floor of that warehouse, there was a moment of true fear that Frank—the Punisher—would finish him off. No matter what understandings they’d come to between them, the Blacksmith’s men were closing in and Matt’s life stood between him and his vengeance.

But Frank hadn’t put a bullet in his head, hadn’t left him there to bleed out or to be found by their enemies. No, Frank had thrown Matt over his shoulder, whispered, “Hold on, Red,” and gotten him to safety.

Frank rises from where he’d been crouched next to the coffee table, denim rasping against itself, and slumps into the chair opposite the couch. His breath hitches, a momentary uptick of his heart rate before it settles into a steady rhythm again. “Ain’t much about you I don’t know. You’re not that hard to figure out.”

Footsteps shuffle in the hallway, and Matt narrows his eyes. An old habit from childhood, a tell that reveals his focus. The noise passes, the cadence of the tread familiar. Mrs. Sweeny is home from her shift at the corner market. In a few minutes, she’ll turn on the television and microwave a frozen meal. Safe, familiar, comfortable.

Matt blinks, steadies his own heart rate, and refocuses on the man across from him. “Okay, so I guess then the question is why did you bring me here? You could have left me there. Maybe even got lucky and waited until they finished me off.”

A rustle of fabric and the chair creaks. “I got a soft spot for you,” Frank says, his voice wavering a fraction of a pitch. “Who’s gonna give me a challenge if I let someone else whack you?”

Matt makes a sound that is half cough and half scoff and doubles over in pain. The motion pulls on his stitches and brings tears to his eyes. He takes a few shallow breaths and waits for the wave of pain to pass. “Maybe you actually want me to stop you,” Matt says when he can breathe again. “You know if I wasn’t around, no one else would be able to.”

It’s Frank’s turn to scoff. “If you stopped swinging those little sticks around and picked up a gun, you wouldn’t look like a patchwork quilt.” Frank’s heartbeat speeds up a notch and his breathing goes unsteady. Almost as if he doesn’t like the idea of Matt getting hurt, which is ridiculous. “If you really wanted to save people, that’s the way to do it.”

Matt shoves himself up from the couch, grunting with pain, and circles to the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room. “I’m not a killer,” he snaps, picking up a glass and filling it with water from the sink before popping two Tylenol from the bottle next to it. Frank’s words sting, their weight too close to that carried by Elektra’s parting shot. Only God has the right to choose who lives and who dies, not Elektra, not Frank, and definitely not Matt. “I have no right to take a life and neither do you.”

Frank barks a laugh. “Uncle Sam gave me the right. They put a gun in my hand and told me to kill the people who needed killed. Bad people do bad things until they’re stopped. You just delay it.”

Matt turns toward Frank again, anger creasing his forehead, and focuses on the timbre of Frank’s words, the steady rhythm of his heart. He believes what he’s saying, trusts it at his core. Matt bites back a frustrated sigh. “Justice is not the same as revenge. I protect people, not sentence them.”

“Punishment, Red. Not revenge.” The chair’s legs grind against the floor and fabric rustles. When Frank speaks again, he’s closer, on the opposite side of the bar, and Matt almost takes a step back. For some reason, having that barrier between them feels important. “Like that pretty blond who works for you? Your hippy friend? Are you protecting them?”

The glass thuds when Matt sits it back on the counter. His jaw clenches and he bites out, “Yes. Them and anyone else who needs to be protected.”

“She’s more than an employee, isn’t she? Karen? She’s your girl.”

Pain, not physical but just as sharp, lances through Matt and his jaw works. The blame for the shambles of his relationship with Karen lies squarely at his feet. No matter what Elektra did or didn’t do, Karen never deserved the way he treated her. “We’re not—she’s—it’s complicated.”

“Love ain’t complicated,” Frank says, both frustration and weariness in his voice. “It’s just something you do. You choose something other than her, something that sends you home looking like that and you don’t know why she’s not committing? Come on, Red. I thought you were smarter than that.”

Matt stiffens, a rush of anger tightening his shoulder blades. Claire’s words all those months ago, the resolve in her voice when she said she could never be with someone who might not come home, echoes in his ears. Karen isn’t the first woman he’s let down. “You know nothing about me,” he snaps, shoving the regrets deep into the cavern with his other sins.

Frank moves almost before Matt registers it, but he stops a foot shy of getting in Matt’s face. “I know you,” he snarls. “We’re more alike than you think.”

Matt’s chest heaves and he holds the breath a moment before letting it out in a rush. “We’re nothing alike.”

“I went to war with a gun in my hand. Did my job, protected my brothers, my country. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t protect the people I needed to the most.” Frank cuts off, breath shallow and pulse spiking. Matt remembers Karen describing the horror of the crime scene photos from the park. “You go to war with your words,” Frank continues, shifting closer, boxing Matt in. “Fancy lawyer education. You think that protects people, the ones you care about. But you know same as me that it’s bullshit. You put on that suit and a mask and fight another way, but you’re still losing the war. Only one way to stop people bent on doing bad and that’s putting them in the ground.”

For a moment, Matt says nothing, just draws in deep breaths, nostrils flaring. Frank’s words might be more crass, harsher, but they’re the same as Elektra’s, as Stick’s. _This is a war._ _This is who I am. We have to stop corrupting each other._ “You’re wrong,” he whispers, voice twisted with pain.

Frank takes a step closer, just inches separating them. “Was I wrong to kill the men the military painted a target on? Would you see every soldier who killed in service to this fucked up country of ours tried for murder?”

“That’s different.”

“Fuck that. It’s no different. A body in the ground is still a body. A life snuffed out before it can do the same thing to anyone else.”

Matt’s chest heaves as he fights for composure. Frank’s breath ghosts across his face, and the feeling of being caged in makes his pulse jump. “Someone has to be responsible,” Matt says, hating the pleading tone to his voice, “to give the order—”

Frank slaps his hand on the refrigerator next to Matt’s head, and Matt flinches, one hand coming up to block the blow that never connects. “Is that what is takes, Red? Someone else taking responsibility? As long as it ain’t you, as long as someone else is giving the orders, you got no problem jumping in line?”

Matt licks his lips. His body reacts to Frank’s too-close heat, but Matt pushes the urges away. “I have no right to make those decisions,” Matt tries again. A different way to say the same thing. The argument that goes nowhere. Not with Elektra, not with Stick, and surely not with Frank. But if it stops the bloodshed, he has to try. “It’s not up to me to decide whose life is worth sparing and whose should be taken.”

For all that Matt’s survival depends on his ability to predict his adversary’s next move, to react faster and stay a step ahead, he’s still caught off guard when Frank cups both sides of his face and tugs him forward to slam their mouths together. Aggression, hunger, shock. There’s barely a moment to decide how to react. Frank pries Matt’s lips apart with his tongue, swallowing Matt’s half-hearted protest.

Matt’s mind might be in turmoil, but his body knows exactly what it wants. His cock hardens, and when Frank sucks his tongue into his mouth, using his hands on Matt’s face to angle his head to the side, Matt groans and raises his arms to circle Frank’s neck.

Frank kisses like he fights, an offensive onslaught that barely gives Matt a moment to catch his breath. Frank catches Matt’s lower lip between his teeth and bites down hard enough that Matt tastes blood. The shock of pain goes straight to his dick.

It’s been years, over a decade, since he’s done this. Let himself go like this. It’s wrong, a sin, but he can’t deny that he’s missed the feel of hard muscles under his hands, the sharp tang of sweat, and the scrape of stubble against his lips. He loved— _ loves _ , if he’s being honest—Elektra. Her wildness and her courage. But he wonders sometimes if what drew him to her was the way she challenged him, her strength and her power. Everything he craves about being with a man in an acceptable package.

“Fuck, Red,” Frank groans against Matt’s jaw when Matt skates his hands up inside Frank’s t-shirt. Frank takes a step forward, pinning Matt to the counter so he can grind their hips together, and Matt’s palms smooth over the hot skin of his back, down until they skim the waistband of his jeans.

Matt kisses up from the hollow of Frank’s throat to his ear, his own harsh breaths mixing with Frank’s ragged panting. Salt burns Matt’s dry lips, the taste of sweat mixing with the metallic tang of blood and the musky scent of Frank’s soap. Matt nips at Frank’s earlobe, not as hard as Frank had Matt’s lip but hard enough to make Frank groan into the crook of his neck. His cock pulses, grinds against the bulge confined in Frank’s pants, when Frank bites down on the tendon under his lips. Matt’s hips jerk, thrusting their dicks harder together.

“Frank, Frank, Frank” Matt chants, hips rolling as he chases the friction. His voice strains, cracks, and whines as the cadence of Frank’s name matches the rhythm of their thrusts.

“I got you.” Frank’s hands trail down his sides, fingertips skimming the edges of the bandage then around to grab two handfuls of Matt’s ass. He bends his knees, lifting as he stands, and Matt only tenses for a moment before he wraps his legs around Frank’s waist. His lips trail back over Frank’s jaw to find his mouth again and this time, it’s Matt’s tongue forcing its way into Frank’s mouth. Frank sucks on it and Matt moans.

Frank isn’t a huge guy, but he’s bulkier than Matt, and he carries Matt’s weight easily. The dozen steps back to the couch take only a few moments, and he stoops to lay Matt onto his back more gently than Matt expects. The stitches at his side and shoulder twinge, but the pain is muted under the adrenaline coursing through him.

Cool air raises goosebumps on his chest when Frank leans away. Fabric rustles before Matt reaches for him, tangling his arms around Frank to pull his body down to cover him. Heated bare skin against skin, Matt kisses him again, sucking on Frank’s tongue to avoid thinking about how much he’d rather be sucking Frank’s cock. It’s a poor substitute.

When Frank leans away again, he keeps his mouth fused to Matt’s. His hands skim down Matt’s bare chest and stop at the closure of his leather pants. Once they’re open, Frank pulls back to drag them, and the boxer briefs under them, down and off Matt’s legs.

For a long moment, there’s silence, and Matt’s entire body prickles as if he can feel Frank looking at him. It’s uncomfortable, the feeling of being scrutinized, when he can’t see what Frank sees.

“Fuck,” Frank breathes out on a groan. “I had no idea you were hiding all this under that stupid getup. Woulda made our fights a lot more interesting if I’d been thinking about what your cock looks like the whole time.”

“Shut u—” Matt cuts off with a groan when Frank closes his fist around the length in question and pumps it a few times, thumb trailing over the head. Moisture gathers around the slit, slicking the little circles Frank makes along the underside. Matt’s hips buck, forcing his cock through Frank’s grasp faster, harder, and his breath catches with little starts and jumps. Pleasure arcs up his spine, obliterating thought. When Frank’s other hand trails down past his balls, gently tugging on the skin of his sac before tracing around his hole, Matt whines, his eyes clenching shut as he throws his head back.

Still rubbing circles against Matt’s rim, Frank releases his dick and leans away again. Metal clicks and the rasp of denim. Matt arches into the pressure of the pads of Frank’s fingers against his hole and waits for Frank to lean over him again. It’s been so long since he’s had the heat of naked skin against his own. 

Instead, Matt picks up the dry friction of skin stroking against skin. He bites back a groan and asks, “Are you jacking yourself?”

“Yeah.”

Matt licks his lips. “Can I—”

“You wanna blow me?” Doubt colors the words.

Matt nods. He can practically feel the weight on his tongue, can almost imagine what Frank will taste like.

Frank pulls his hand away from where he’s been teasing Matt and shuffles up to bring his dick even with Matt’s lips. Matt can smell the heavy muskiness of it. “Have you ever—”

“Shut up, Frank,” Matt snaps, tongue darting out to flatten over the head. Already leaking, the pre-come is bitter, but exactly what he’s craving. Frank shudders and Matt smirks. “You’re not the first man I’ve been with.”

“Your partner? The other lawyer?” Frank’s voice is laced with surprise.

Matt’s face screws up. “Foggy? No, definitely not. In college. It’s been a few years.”

“For me too.”

Tired of talking, Matt slides his hands around to grab Frank’s ass and pulls him forward so he can swallow Frank’s dick in one smooth motion. The head hits the back of Matt’s throat and Matt swallows a few times before tugging him forward even farther. Out of practice, he gags this time, throat spasming, and Frank tries to pull away.   

Matt tightens his grip on Frank’s ass and tugs his hips forward, nudging his dick in and out of Matt’s throat despite the way he chokes on each stroke. Tears gather at the corner of his eyes from the effort and spill over, but Matt still doesn’t let Frank pull back. He gets lost in the  wantonness of it, the filthy rhythm and the way Frank grunts when he swirls his tongue around the head.

Matt has no idea how long it lasts, but when Frank pulls away again, Matt lets him go. He moves back down, and the couch dips when Frank rests one knee between Matt’s spread legs. He spits into his hand and rubs the moisture over Matt’s rim, dipping inside a little. Matt’s body clenches on the intrusion and he forces himself to relax, to let it start to feel good.

Until the head of Frank’s dick presses against the entrance to Matt’s body.

Matt kicks him in the ass with one heel. “What the hell are you doing?” he demands, struggling to push himself up on his uninjured shoulder.

Frank freezes. “What?”

Matt shoves his hand down between the back of the couch and the cushions and comes up with a small bottle and a foil packet. He’d been hoping, maybe someday, to use them with Karen, but that was before Elektra crashed back into his life.

Frank chuckles when Matt thrusts them into his hand. “You keep lube and condoms in your couch? You really are a fucking boy scout.”

“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to fuck me?” Matt says, still glowering.

The crinkle of foil is shockingly loud and then the lube cap clicks. The rasp of skin on skin gives way to a slick, wet glide. Matt is so captivated by the sound of Frank jacking himself that he starts when a warm trickle of lube drizzles over his hole.

Matt moans, head tipping back, when Frank pushes the slick inside with first one finger then two, pumping gently and then harder, faster when Matt bears down. Heat builds inside him already, hurtling him toward the edge.

This time when Frank lines up, Matt gives him a hazy grin. His mouth goes slack when Frank pushes in, his body gradually opening to accommodate Frank inside him. The stretch is harsh, but Matt craves it, craves the fire and what he knows will come after everything else is burned away.

“Holy fuck, Red. Not gonna last. You feel so fucking good on my dick,” Frank pants, his body trembling.

“Me either,” Matt counters, rocking his hips. “Move, Frank.”

Frank pulls out nearly the whole way and slides back in to the hilt in one smooth motion. Matt keens, abdominal muscles bunching as he shifts his hips to urge Frank on. In response, Frank sets a smooth rhythm of fast, shallow thrusts punctuated with slower, deeper movements. On each long thrust, Matt’s entire body tenses and his eyes roll back in his head.

It only takes a few minutes for Matt’s body to begin to quiver, muscles straining as he rolls up to meet every thrust. He reaches for his dick with his uninjured arm, but Frank grabs him by the wrist before he can connect. “Frank, please, I can’t come like this. I need—”

Frank presses their palms together, fingers clasped in a way that feels too profound even as he’s buried inside Matt’s body. This is just fucking, primal need, nothing else, and the intimate gesture guts him. Frank pulls Matt’s hand above his head, pinning it against the arm of the couch as he picks up the pace. Every thrust punches a grunt out of Matt, pushing him up the couch against the arm. Frank leans in, mouth ravaging Matt’s before wrapping his free hand around Matt’s cock and pumping in time with his thrusts. “I got you. You’ll get what you need. Let go, Matt.”

His name on Frank’s lips, gasped out on a hoarse breath, undoes him. Matt’s unseeing eyes go wide and his breath catches on Frank’s name a moment before his entire body goes taut. Pleasure races up his spine, and he shudders, cock pulsing. The spasms seem to go on forever, and Frank circles his hips, grinding deeper with each thrust until he finally shudders out a deep moan, his cock pulsing inside Matt.

Frank drops his forehead against Matt’s as Matt sucks in deep gasps of oxygen. Matt shudders with aftershocks, his ass clenching weakly on Frank’s dick, and he winces when Frank pulls out. The emptiness feels wrong after being so full.

Matt stays spread out on the couch when Frank pushes himself up, the molten heat in his veins leaving his muscles lax and sated. A moment later, cloth drags across his chest, smearing his cooling release over his skin and making him shiver. The cool air brings much needed clarity. What the hell did he do? Allow Frank to do to him? He’d told himself never again, that he would never again be so weak, but like always, he let himself down.

Frank stands, denim dragging over skin and the scrape of a metal zipper, and then his footsteps move away. Shame, thick and bitter, washes over Matt when the rustle of the kitchen garbage reaches his ears. At least he’d had the presence of mind to insist Frank use a condom. He wants to cover himself, to somehow negate what happened, but he has no idea where his clothes are. Asking Frank to hand them to him is out of the question.

Instead, Matt gathers what little pride he has left and drags himself upright on the couch. The stitches pull, and the wet slide of a trickle of blood slips down his hip, but Matt ignores it. When Frank’s footsteps approach, Matt straightens his back and tries desperately to pull himself together.

Frank is silent for several long moments, and Matt has no idea what to say. What do you say to a man who laid you bare and came inside you? It’s not Frank’s fault that Matt is so weak, and even now, Matt doesn’t want to rest the burden of his sins on Frank’s shoulders.

There’s another rustle of fabric and Frank says, “It’s almost dawn.” His voice is strained, like he’s just as ashamed of what they did.

Matt’s jaw works, then he forces a tight smile. “You should go,” he says, swallowing the bile in his throat.

Franks takes a deep breath and lets it out, almost a sigh, and the sound tightens Matt’s chest. The weapons in Frank’s duffle bag clank, then steps retreat toward the window leading onto the fire escape. “See you around, Red,” Frank said, his voice free of even a hint of Matt’s inner turmoil.

The nickname turns Matt’s stomach. “Frank,” Matt calls, needing to voice even a fraction of what he wishes he could say. The fire escape creaks and then silence. “Just so you know,” he continues, forcing his voice steady past his tight throat. “It doesn’t help when someone else takes responsibility. A mistake is still a mistake no matter who gave the orders.”

Frank’s heart rate ticks up for just a moment, and then the screech of the fire escape nearly drowns out his ascent to the roof. Matt wants to go after him, to apologize for everything, for letting it get out of control, but he doesn’t, can’t. He tips his head back against the couch, closes and his eyes and tries to imagine what he’s going to do next.


End file.
